Aircard595
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Telus, Sierra Wireless carrying EV-DO Rev A to Canada
If the Canucks out there have been getting a bit jealous at all the Rev A love going around down south, your resentment ends now -- well, sometime this year, anyway. Thanks to Telus and Sierra Wireless, EV-DO Rev A connectvitiy is headed to Canada in the coming months, as interested users will be able to pop the AirCard 595 into their laptop's PCMCIA slot and reportedly reach peak speeds of up to 3.1Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream. Of course, it is noted that typical speeds will range between 300 to 400Kbps whilst uploading, and 450 to 800Kbps on the downward slope, but you Canadians will probably take what you can get, eh? Unfortunately, there's no set dates for the future rollouts, and "select markets" is all we have to go on for availability, but we do know that Telus will be charging $349.99 for the AirCard 595 sans a contract, or you can lock yourself in for a whopping three years if you've only got $99.99 to spare.
Sprint / Sierra Wireless extend EV-DO Rev. A support to Mac users
While the Wintel crowd has been enjoying that Rev. A speediness for some time now (in certain locales, at least), the Mac faithful have been fairly well shut out up until now. Thanks to Sprint and Sierra Wireless, all that changes today, as the Seirra AirCard 595 PC Card now works in OS X 10.4 or later. The free Watcher Lite 1.0 software is currently available from Sierra's website, but before you go dashing out to pick up a card, you will still need a Windows-based machine to activate the device or have it pre-activated before heading into your Mac. Furthermore, don't plan on utilizing that ExpressCard slot either, as the only supported card thus far rocks a PCMCIA interface. Nah, Macworld hasn't hit full swing just yet, but this news is a real fine way to get things rolling.
Sprint / Sierra Wireless extends EV-DO Rev. A support to Mac users
While the Wintel crowd has been enjoying that Rev. A speediness for some time now (in certain locales, at least), the Mac faithful have been fairly well shut out up until now. Thanks to Sprint and Sierra Wireless, all that changes today, as the Seirra AirCard 595 PC Card now works in OS X 10.4 or later. The free Watcher Lite 1.0 software is currently available from Sierra's website, but before you go dashing out to pick up a card, you will still need a Windows-based machine to activate the device or have it pre-activated before heading into your Mac. Furthermore, don't plan on utilizing that ExpressCard slot either, as the only supported card thus far rocks a PCMCIA interface. Nah, Macworld hasn't hit full swing just yet, but this news is a real fine way to get things rolling.
Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A network launches Friday?
Sprint may have beaten big ol' Red this time around, but Verizon's not about to let a little friendly rivalry get them down. Rumor has it that the nation's largest CDMA carrier begins rolling out its EV-DO Revision A network this Friday, starting with ten cities (Sacramento and Salt Lake City among them) and a little data card we like to call the Sierra Wireless AirCard 595. Like Sprint's Rev. A launch, Verizon customers lucky enough to get their hands on the requisite equipment should see a substantial improvement in upstream speeds (we're guessing 300-400kbps) with a more incremental boost in the opposite direction. Pricing for the AirCard 595 should start at $150 on a two year agreement, topping out at $270 commitment-free.[Thanks, htckid]Update: GigaOM now reports a Verizon official as stating that it already has a handful of markets running EV-DO Revision A as is, and while they intend to launch a Rev. A-capable card in the near future (almost certainly the previously mentioned AirCard 595), it will not be announcing the launch of the network in an official capacity until it takes a significant number of additional markets live. Of course, official announcement or no, customers might be able to take advantage of some turbocharged wireless data in the near term just as soon as that AirCard starts shipping.
